Eni Chief Blasts Nabucco

Paolo Scaroni, Chief Executive of ENI SpA, said that that Nabucco gas pipeline project 'is not a solid project.'

'We have never seen a pipeline, which needs tens of billions of dollars of investment that does not have a gas producer as a partner. Nabucco is a consortium of gas consumers, so from our point of view it is not a solid project,' Scaroni said on Wednesday.

Eni has teamed with Russia's Gazprom in proposing to build the South Stream pipeline project, which is widely viewed as a competing project to the European Union based Nabucco.

South Stream is due for completion in 2015, Nabucco in 2017. Many analysts see the two projects as part of a power struggle between Russia and the European Union, but Scaroni insisted that there was 'no competition' between them.

'Nabucco will be able to be launched if Azerbaijani gas, at least 10-15 billion cubic meters of it, will be supplied,' Scaroni said. 'I don't know if those who take part in (it) will want to go ahead and spend 10-12 billion euro having secured only one (supply) contract.'

In January, Azerbaijan signed up to a joint declaration with visiting EU leaders in which it promised to become a 'substantial' gas supplier to Europe.

But Scaroni said that, if Azerbaijan were to renege, the Nabucco consortium would be left with the 'very meagre consolation' of taking legal action.

The ENI chief was equally sceptical of smaller pipeline projects which also depend on Azeri gas, such as the Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI) and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline between Albania to Italy, backed by Norway's Statoil ASA, Germany's E.On AG and the Swiss-based EGL group.